I have several of these bad boys. Will attempt to flash when I get home. Thanks for the writeup. I even went as far as buying a p410 on eBay just to flash. I had no idea you could flash without one.
HP SAS Expander Wiki
- Thread starter odditory
- Start date
Matt,
I'm afraid I can't really help much. I only had the one card to flash and I didn't have any issues. The only thing I see that is different between your experience and mine is I started with FW 2.06 and used ubuntu 14. You might want to try ubuntu 14, if we can get enough people posting their results we can eventually put together definitive how to on flashing these things without HP Raid card.
EDIT: One more thing to check is I had a single SAS cable plugged into the port labeled backplane. Also there is a note on the other forum where one person flashed their card and it did not increase rev number but started negotiating SATA at 3GB. You might want to try plugging in drive to see what link negotiates at.
I'm afraid I can't really help much. I only had the one card to flash and I didn't have any issues. The only thing I see that is different between your experience and mine is I started with FW 2.06 and used ubuntu 14. You might want to try ubuntu 14, if we can get enough people posting their results we can eventually put together definitive how to on flashing these things without HP Raid card.
EDIT: One more thing to check is I had a single SAS cable plugged into the port labeled backplane. Also there is a note on the other forum where one person flashed their card and it did not increase rev number but started negotiating SATA at 3GB. You might want to try plugging in drive to see what link negotiates at.
I've just been through the above steps, with a HP SAS expander card that had Firmware 1.00 installed, and it has not updated... even after a power cycle.
Rig:
Norco RPC-4224
SuperMicro X8SIL-F
IBM M1015 - Flashed to IT Mode with Avago/LSI 9211-8i firmware 20.00.07.00
Using Ubuntu 16.04.01 Live USB/CD (i386 build).
output of lsscsi command:
the first sg_write_buffer command takes approx 30-40 seconds to complete, with no errors indicated. the second sg_write_buffer command takes less than a second.Code:root@ubuntu:~# lssci [0:0:2:0] enclosu HP HP SAS EXP Card 1.00 - [1:0:0:0] disk ATA KINGSTON SUV400S DS6D /dev/sdc [5:0:0:0] disk ATA KINGSTON SUV400S DS6D /dev/sde
A power cycle, and recheck of the firmware revisionb does not show any change.
(Note: I have tried both CP019687.scexe and CP022989.scexe) both have the same results.
I am open to suggestions
Last edited:
Hello All,
New forum user here; current HP Expander card user also.
I am wondering if anyone has had this type of issue.
I have an Avago / LSI SAS 9201-8i raid card flashed to latest IT-mode firmware and HP Expander card model # HSTNM-B017 firmware version 2.10. When in bios settings of raid card, all 8 drives connected to expander can be seen as online.
When booting into different Linux distros, only 1 or 2 or rarely 3 drives can be seen as online. Boot back to card bios, all drives responding perfectly.
When connected directly to raid card, all drives seen perfectly in OS.
Expander card heat sink is warm but not hot to the touch when running.
Have tried other breakout cables, 8087-to-8087 cables, and even a spare expander card with same results. I have not tried a different host raid adapter, but in the process of acquiring one.
Before purchasing another raid card, is there any particular type that might work better than the 9201? This card seems to work perfectly when not attached to the expander card, with all 8 drives.
Any insight into this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
New forum user here; current HP Expander card user also.
I am wondering if anyone has had this type of issue.
I have an Avago / LSI SAS 9201-8i raid card flashed to latest IT-mode firmware and HP Expander card model # HSTNM-B017 firmware version 2.10. When in bios settings of raid card, all 8 drives connected to expander can be seen as online.
When booting into different Linux distros, only 1 or 2 or rarely 3 drives can be seen as online. Boot back to card bios, all drives responding perfectly.
When connected directly to raid card, all drives seen perfectly in OS.
Expander card heat sink is warm but not hot to the touch when running.
Have tried other breakout cables, 8087-to-8087 cables, and even a spare expander card with same results. I have not tried a different host raid adapter, but in the process of acquiring one.
Before purchasing another raid card, is there any particular type that might work better than the 9201? This card seems to work perfectly when not attached to the expander card, with all 8 drives.
Any insight into this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
What model(s) of drive are you using? Once a friend was trying to use a bunch of different models and sizes of drive with an hp sas expander with the final firmware, and two older smaller drives just wouldn't show up through the expander, but worked fine difectly attached to the lsi controller (some sas2008 card, I forget which) with no bios on the card, so we didn't see if they were seen at boot. He ended up replacing the drives anyway, so we never found the root cause, but chalked it up to first generation sata drive quirks.
If you only have 8 drives anyway, what is your plan with the expander? (I suspect adding more drives later...)
If you only have 8 drives anyway, what is your plan with the expander? (I suspect adding more drives later...)
You're correct, I have room for a lot more drives in future. I have a variety of drives attached, seagate 2g, wd 4g, 1 hgst 6g, 1 hgst 2g. When drives are attached to expander and system booted to OS, sometimes this or that drive will show, but vary randomly. Reboots generally show different drive(s) almost every time. Tried different OS's also, so doesn't seem to be card driver issue, especially when the card by itself shows all drives in any os.
I don't have a lot of money wrapped up in the 2 expander cards, so that's not a big deal if I can't use them. I can get a 16 port sas card if necessary, and that's the way I'm leaning right now. When the system is finalized, there will be more than 8 drives, so probably will go with something greater than 8 ports.
Would be nice to be able to utilize the expanders, but if not, oh well. Using the expanders would make for a bit more complicated system, and having something simpler would probably be better in long run.
Have a great day!
Well, I think I figured the HP Expander card issue out.
Set device timeout options in LSI SAS9201-8i higher than default, and all drive offline issues went away! Now to start turning each one back down one at a time, to see which one(s) actually affect the disks.
For now, seems to be running quite smoothly, even on multiple reboots. Tried different OS's also, with same good results.
Thanks all!
Set device timeout options in LSI SAS9201-8i higher than default, and all drive offline issues went away! Now to start turning each one back down one at a time, to see which one(s) actually affect the disks.
For now, seems to be running quite smoothly, even on multiple reboots. Tried different OS's also, with same good results.
Thanks all!
Hi, Sorry to bring up such an old thread but I do have a query for you, I have not yet installed linux on my server and am still using windblowz at the moment as I am testing drives and the Avago UI comes in handy.
What I was wanting to know is under linux with the 2.10 version firmware do you see all the drives as being on one port or do they report as cable group selections, under windows I have 16 drives connected and they all show as port 0-3 and port 4-7 Slot number 0 on my HP Sas expander FW 2.08 connected to an 9361-8i.
I don't know if the limitation on reporting the drive # as 0 and not reporting the header number is related to the SAS expander FW version or the 9361-8i. I have been told that the LSI firmware is a bit dumb when it comes to this.
Everything is working it just makes it difficult to identify a drive if it bodges out.
So what's my best option to flash two of these HP SAS expanders? I bought two on eBay that should have had firmware v2.08 per the picture of the sticker on it in the listing, but they look to have something much older (per the sticker haven't put them in a machine yet). I don't have a HBA or a suitable HP server.
What's a cheap HBA to pickup to flash these (presuming that's the best way)? An IBM M1015 crossflashed to a LSI9211 IT?
What's a cheap HBA to pickup to flash these (presuming that's the best way)? An IBM M1015 crossflashed to a LSI9211 IT?
I just flashed a couple using an old LSI 1608e card I found in a parts box (the older chipset that doesn't support drives > 2.2 TB), after I flashed the card to IT mode. Doesn't need to be one of the newer SAS2008 chips. If you happen to be near Seattle, WA, you could come over with the expanders and a couple beers and we could get them flashed in no time...
Edit: $9 on ebay (you'd also need a SFF-8087 cable): LSI SAS3081E-R 3Gb/s 8-Port Low Profile RAID Storage Controller | eBay
Edit: $9 on ebay (you'd also need a SFF-8087 cable): LSI SAS3081E-R 3Gb/s 8-Port Low Profile RAID Storage Controller | eBay
Thanks, but I'm nowhere near there. I'm in MI.
That LSI still need to be crossflashed to a different firmware (IT) to support flashing right? I have SFF-8087 cables.
Yeah. It was pretty easy - basically the same process as cross-flashing a M1015, but with sasflash.exe instead of sas2flsh.exe.
I used a FreeDOS boot USB stick made with Rufus. It did take me a little bit of hunting to find the firmware files and the DOS mode sasflash.exe - PM me and I can get them to you and save you the effort.
Just wanted to say thanks for this tipp to the one who found this out originally and all others who spread this. Thank you very much! Great work.
With this I was able to successfully flash a HPE DL38X Gen10 12Gb SAS Expander.
HBA used is an SAS9211-8i and Ubuntu 18.04. lsscsi and sg3-utils were used from the Ubuntu repo.
Extracted the firmware firmware-smartarray-2de15b6882-4.22-1.1.x86_64.rpm as proposed in the HPE instructions with rpm2cpio: "Extract the contents of the rpm using the command: rpm2cpio <rpm_filename>.rpm | cpio -id. This extracts the contents of the rpm to 'usr' folder in the current directory"
This creates the "firmware....bin.fw" file in a subdirectory, which contains the image I wanted to flash.
Than flashed with
- sg_write_buffer --mode=dmc_offs_defer --bpw=4096 --in=firmwareYYYYYYYY.bin.fw /dev/sgX (change X to what you notated earlier, replace YYYYYYYY with the part of the real filename)
- sg_write_buffer --mode=activate_mc /dev/sgX (change X to what you notated earlier)
The original HPE flashtool did not find the expander on a non HP server. Neither with a RAID card nor with an HBA. Even tried in ESXi but it fails there as well. But sg_write_buffer did work in the end.
My adventure was not so fun. A FreeDOS USB stick didn't work since the system I was using has a UEFI BIOS. I had to use the use the UEFI method, which requires a very specific bootx64.efi file or it won't work. Of course pretty much all the links to it in the guides are broken.
tianocore/edk
Digital Cardboard
It also turned out that the SAS expanders had 2.08 on them already despite what was on the sticker. Now they all have 2.10 on them since I went to the trouble of setting up a HBA in IT mode to flash them. The Linux instructions on serverfault are a bit lacking also for using the latest Ubuntu 19.10 (which is only x64) from a USB stick, but I was able to use them as a loose guideline for what to do.
This might seem crazy, but has anyone tried hooking one of these cards to the PCI-E Risers that Cryptominers use to connect video cards to a PCI-E 1x slot?
Since this card doesn't use the PCI-E Slot for I/O and only for power, seems like a waste to plug it directly into a motherboard. You could theoretically mount this card vertically in a case and power it with a PCI-E riser that has a molex power connector. Or if there was a compelling reason to interface directly with the motherboard, could you do it through a PCI-E 1x slot while using a cryptominer PCI-E riser?
Since this card doesn't use the PCI-E Slot for I/O and only for power, seems like a waste to plug it directly into a motherboard. You could theoretically mount this card vertically in a case and power it with a PCI-E riser that has a molex power connector. Or if there was a compelling reason to interface directly with the motherboard, could you do it through a PCI-E 1x slot while using a cryptominer PCI-E riser?
NICE! I thought that would work. So are you utilizing the PCI-E 1x connectivity? Or are you not connecting that and just powering the board with the PCI-E 16x riser? I'm guessing the latter. But I thought I'd ask.
Not using the 1x piece at all...just the 16x riser. Had them in a couple of DAS boxes and they worked great (until I upgraded to a Dell expander that supported 6gbps for SATA drives)
Had one of these cards connected this way for months, working great. I found one that uses PCIe 6-pin (video card) power connection, as the power supply has lots of these (unused) connectors.
Cheers!